Virtual universes (VUs) are rapidly becoming a popular part of today's culture. A VU is a computer-based simulated environment. Many VUs are represented using 3-D graphics and landscapes, and are populated by many thousands of users, known as “residents”. Often, the VU resembles the real world such as in terms of physics, places, and landscapes.
VUs are also known as metaverses and “3D Internet.” Some example VUs include: SECOND LIFE™, ENTROPIA UNIVERSE®, THE SIMS ONLINE™ and THERE™—as well as massively multiplayer online games such as EVERQUEST®, ULTIMA ONLINE™, LINEAGE® and WORLD OF WARCRAFT®. (SECOND LIFE is a trademark of Linden Research, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. ENTROPIA UNIVERSE is a registered trademark of MindArk PE AB in the United States, other countries, or both. THE SIMS ONLINE and ULTIMA ONLINE are trademarks of Electronic Arts, Inc. in the United States, other countries, or both. THERE is a trademark of Makena Technologies, Inc. in the United States, other countries, or both. EVERQUEST is a registered trademark of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. in the United States, other countries, or both. LINEAGE is a registered trademark of NCsoft Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. WORLD OF WARCRAFT is a registered trademark of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. in the United States, other countries, or both.)
A VU is intended for its residents to traverse, inhabit, and interact through the use of avatars. In operation, user(s) control the avatar(s). An avatar is a graphical representation selected by the user, often taking the form of a cartoon-like human or other figure. The user's account, upon which the user can build an avatar, is tied to an inventory of assets the user owns, such as, for example, clothing, weapons, artwork, furniture, virtual pets, houses, virtual vehicles, and landmarks, amongst other items. A region is a virtual area of land within the VU, typically residing on a server's central processing unit (CPU). A user context includes a very broad range of attributes that describe the user, and which are relevant to their behavioral, search and other informational needs.
The data representation of an object or item in the VU is stored as information, e.g., as data or metadata. The object may be created by an object creator, e.g., a VU manager, a user, etc. In some VUs, larger objects are constructed of smaller objects, termed “prims” for primitive objects. These “prims” usually include boxes, prisms, spheres, cylinders, tori, tubes and/or rings. The “prims” may be rearranged, resized, rotated, twisted, tapered, dimpled and linked to create larger composite objects. The creator of such an object may then map a texture or multiple textures to the object. Texture mapping is a method of adding detail, surface texture, or color to a computer-generated graphic or 3D model. When the object is to be rendered, this information is transmitted from the VU server to the client.
An inventory of assets comprises objects or items associated with the user's individual avatar or placed by them on virtual land they own or on public land. Such objects or items may have been created by the resident from prims, purchased, or obtained for free. Examples of objects include clothing, weapons, artwork, furniture, virtual pets, houses, virtual vehicles, and landmarks, amongst other objects. Assets, avatar(s), the environment, and everything else visually represented in the VU each comprise universally unique identifiers (UUIDs) (tied to geometric data distributed to user(s) as textual coordinates), textures (distributed to user(s) as graphics files), and effects data (rendered by the user's client according to the user's preference(s) and user's device capabilities).
An element that makes virtual worlds attractive to users is the social interaction that is possible. Whether using the VU for personal or business purposes, many residents enjoy meeting other residents and creating new social relationships. It is often difficult and/or time consuming, however, to share all of the information that one resident would like to convey to another resident with the tools available in the VU (e.g., chat, gestures, etc.). Additionally, when meeting new residents who share similar traits to other residents that a given avatar has already met and socialized with, in order to convey desired information to the new resident, the conveyance must be manually repeated for each new resident that one meets.